The U.S. is in the midst of a gardening renaissance. As the coronavirus pandemic prompts big questions about the future of our food system, people everywhere are buying up seeds, pulling up lawns, building raised beds, and flocking to learn from Master Gardeners.
A grain and flour expert enthusiast says the local flour revolution is tastier, healthier, and has created more robust markets.
They were picking strawberries, father and son, in the afternoon sunlight of the Oxnard Plain.
The men, 62-year-old Javier Carranza and his son Cruz, 43, piled the ripened fruit into cardboard boxes destined for farmers markets. Father on one row, son on another, moving steadily from mound to mound.
The pandemic has changed the game for enterprises big and small across the world, and business owners everywhere are trying to adapt. One local fisherman has found a niche to keep his business open and staff employed.
For the protagonist of Nels Fredrickson’s clever illustrated story, Itza’s Garden, freedom means space to move and breathe, and time for nature to take its course. Itza is a hen trapped in a cage on a factory farm, required to produce three eggs a day or be carted off and rendered into chicken parts. Itza’s world, like our own, is a go-go, never slow down place.
Some of the workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic in Lompoc were treated to bundles of fresh, locally-grown produce on Friday, courtesy of a local agricultural enterprise.
More than 50 years ago, scientists at the Permanente Foundation Hospital in Oakland started a simple experiment: When a pregnant woman would come in for routine maternal care, they were asked to give a sample of blood, to be frozen for future research. They didn’t know it at the time, but those samples would later be key in understanding the long-term health impacts of the then widely-used pesticide DDT.
The contrast in the story — the best of times, the worst of times — echoes what the produce industry and the broader food industry have been experiencing as retailers struggle to keep up with demand and most restaurants and other foodservice outlets — cruises, theme parks, hotels — are shut down or are trying to stay afloat on take-out and delivery.
Thank you to California’s farmers, ranchers and farm workers for feeding us and supporting our food banks as they provide nourishment to the people who depend on them.
SBCFAN Executive Director Shakira Miracle shares about building resilience for now and the future.
